Rearview Ghosts

Part I 

Even with my forehead pressed against the train’s only window, the world outside blurs into a shapeless haze. My thumb absentmindedly traces the “L” engraving on the locket grasped in my hand like it could actually take me back. As if I could outrun the fate that has haunted me for five years. 

I am running to the far corner of the Earth as fast as I can get there. And yet, every time I get on this train, I find myself back on it within the next hour, retreating right back, but this time, I’ve made my decision. My final one.  

I try to convince myself that the choice I’m making is the right one, similarly to the countless nights I spent without sleep because of the memories that flooded back to me. Drowning. Suffocating. 

I glance down at the locket in my hand, the rust accumulated around the crevasse mocking me for procrastinating his last gift to me. It’s been five years since it was found in his car after the accident—five years since the police showed up at my door in possession of a small box with my name scrawled across it in his handwriting. Tears weld in my eyes, blurring my vision, but I refuse to let them fall. Air becomes too thick to breathe, and the lack of oxygen has my head spinning, revolving around thoughts that haunt me relentlessly. I should have stopped. It’s my fault he’s— 

One fleeting reflection in the window fractures every thought into jagged shards. Not mine—no, this one belongs to a face I never thought I’d see again. A face stolen too soon, after I spent every moment I could at his house. 

Noah. 

Part II 

The lights flicker, the reflection with it as my fingers tremble against the metal. It can’t possibly be him, no, I haven’t seen him in years. I watched people get on the train and Noah Vale could be spotted and identified a mile away. But it looks impossibly close to a resemblance. 

He looks exactly as he did the last time I saw him—messy brown waves tumbling onto his forehead, caramel eyes brimming with a warmth I’m not sure I deserve. A grin tugs at his lips, that signature I-know-something-you-don’t smirk he always flashed the second he got away with anything. 

Hesitant, I touch the glass, disbelief washing over me like an ocean’s tide, but it is frosty, matching the world outside. I look at Noah’s reflection again, following those hazel eyes trail down me, watching. Waiting. It can’t be him.  

My eyes droop closed, head lolling back against the head rest. I breathe in the aroma of sage—of home—he always carried with him as I let the exhaustion of too many hours conscious brought with it. The scent of him alone is enough to make me feel like I’m being wrapped in the world’s biggest blanket, breath after breath. But as quickly as it comes, it’s gone, leaving only the ache of his absence. Maybe he was never there. 

I kept my eyes shut, the locket that was now leaving an imprint on my palm, feeling too heavy for one longing soul to bear. The weight of five years crashes down on me all at once. The memories come in sharp, unforgiving flashes—his voice, the heat of our argument, the way I turned away, furious. I can still hear the echo of my own words, the ones I wish I could take back. 

"You're impossible." 

"Yeah? Well, maybe you should just leave, then." 

I did. I walked away. I let my anger win. 

The accident happened that night. 

The call came hours later, but time didn't feel real anymore. Just a numb blur of disbelief, of cold hands gripping my phone too tight as the words settled in. Dead. Gone. Forever. 

Now, every year on this night, I replay it all. The fight, the way I stormed off, the sound of my own voice laced with frustration. If I had stayed. If I had said something different. If I had just turned back. 

But I didn't. 

And he's been gone ever since. 

My eyes fly open, practically panting as my eyes dart around the train car, stuttering when they find their way to the seat across from me. He’s there. A newspaper shields his face but doesn’t quite reach the bangs I wish I could run my fingers through one last time. His gaze, when the newspaper finally allows it to meet mine, is anticipating in a way I hadn’t expected. 

My fingers stammer in turning the locket between my fingers. The locket he gave me. The same one I had been constantly excusing myself from facing. I look back to him, wanting an answer or at least an explanation, but Noah just tosses me one of those You-know-you want-to half smiles. The past has chased me long enough. Maybe it’s time I turn to face it. 

I exhale, drawing it out to stall, before flipping it open. A folded piece of paper falls out, but my burning eyes are locked on the picture decorating the royal blue velvet elegantly lining the silver inside. We both had a copy of the picture; neither one of us had the actual file. Mine had been stolen. 

The picture is old, edges softened from years of being handled. A faint crease runs diagonally across it, a scar from being folded once upon a time. The colors have started to fade, giving it a slightly washed-out look, but the details are still clear enough to hurt. 

It’s of us. 

Noah stands on the right, his arm slung around my shoulder like it belonged there. His grin is lopsided, effortless, the kind that used to make everyone around him believe he had nothing to worry about. I know better. His dark eyes glint with something—mischief, defiance, or maybe a little bit of both. Beside him, I barely recognize myself. Younger, lighter somehow, with a hesitant smile that doesn’t quite reach my eyes. 

I don’t remember when it was taken. Maybe that’s a lie—I do remember. I just don’t want to. 

My throat tightens, a lump forming that I can’t swallow down. The memory behind the picture presses in around me, thick and suffocating. The last time I saw this photo, it was in my hands before it disappeared. Stolen. I had assumed it was lost forever. 

Yet here it is, waiting in the locket all along. A secret buried in silver, untouched by time. 

I finally tear my gaze away from the picture and glance at Noah again, half-expecting—half-hoping—he’ll say something. Explain. Justify. But he only watches me, his expression unreadable now, the smirk gone. 

Now I reach for the note in my lap, carefully unfolding a set of edges just as worn as the picture’s. Three words at the top watch my eye first in bold script that is undeniably Noah’s. I’m sorry, L.  

I go to fold the note back, but there are four words a few lines down that I missed before. A goodbye. I’m not worth mourning. 

I should be angry. Maybe I am. But the grief outweighs it, even as I look into hazel eyes one last time, into the eyes of a boy I would do anything for and whisper, “I forgive you.” Noah just smiles, his form fading from the seat with a quick wink.  

This time I let my tears fall, and I don’t force myself to feel anything other than remorse and regret.  

Because Noah is dead, and he left me a locket, a picture, and a note that meant the world to him. 

Epilogue 

The train shudders to a stop, the station waiting in silence. Home feels foreign—distant in a way I never thought possible—and returning would be a mercy. But I don’t grant myself that kindness. 

I lift my forehead from the window, locking eyes with the girl who died with him, even though she’s never felt closer. Her blonde curls tumble unevenly to her waist, framing blue eyes as bright and boundless as the sky above. And that girl is all I need to force myself out of my seat, because that girl—the same fearless, stubborn, sharp-edged blonde who never took crap from anyone—is me. 

I step off the train, inhaling the crisp air of a world still turning without him. But this time, I carry him with me—not as a ghost, but as a promise.